“Call the hotel manager,” Asadov says. “Is there even a manager here?”
“There is,” Mar’yasha answers him, and he, with surprise, looks down.
“And you know her?”
“That’s our mom,” Margosha says.
Artem sits down on his haunches in front of the girls. Milasha hands him Marcel.
“Want to pet him?”
Asadov absentmindedly reaches out—but then catches himself in time.
“So where is your mother?”
“She’s sick—on quarantine. No, in the hospital. And better in a coma. No, in jail”…
He mustn’t see me, otherwise he’ll recognize me immediately.
And he’ll learn that he has three daughters.